Thursday, August 6th, 2026
Happy Thursday!
Welcome back to HOW TO // AI. Every single week, somebody replies to this newsletter with the same question: which AI certification should I get? This week I finally answered it properly. I ranked all 11 of them, on video.
Here's what's in today's issue:
🎓 All 11 AI Certs, Ranked
🎯 Free Cert Practice Questions
🎬 The Full Video Breakdown
Let's get into it! (Short on time? jump straight to the free practice questions and find your cert the fast way.)
🎓 Which AI cert should you get? All 11, ranked
Almost everybody asks this question wrong. The real question isn't which cert is best. It's which cert is worth anything for you: your job, your company's tech stack, your next move. Get that match right and a $100 exam can change how employers see you. Get it wrong and you've bought an expensive PDF for your LinkedIn profile.
I took a first swing at this back in June, and the follow-up questions never stopped. The cert world kept moving too: Microsoft launched a brand-new agent-building cert and retired an old favorite. So I went all in and ranked every major AI certification in one video:
The rule behind the ranking. A certification is only worth money if it passes three tests:
Recognition. Does the person you want to hire you actually know this cert exists?
Stack match. Most companies live on one cloud. A cert in the platform your employer actually uses is worth double a cert in one they don't.
Role match. Leading people who use AI and building with it yourself are different jobs, and there are different certs for each.
Fail two of the three for your situation and that cert is, for you, worthless. Not bad, just wrong for you. Here's how the 11 shake out:
🥇 Tier 1: start here (no coding, about $100). AWS AI Practitioner ($100) is the most recognized entry-level AI credential there is, and my default answer. Azure AI Fundamentals ($99) wins if your workplace runs on Microsoft. CompTIA AI Fundamentals ($99) is the vendor-neutral pick. And Google Cloud Generative AI Leader ($99) is built for managers and executives who lead AI users rather than build. Pick exactly one.
🥈 Tier 2: the career tier. For people building AI systems: AWS Machine Learning Engineer ($150) if you want those words in your job title, NVIDIA NCA-GENL (~$125-135) as the cloud-neutral generative AI pick, its sibling NCA-AIIO for infrastructure folks, and Microsoft's brand-new AI-103 ($165) for building AI agents. Enter this tier when a job you actually want lists these skills.
🥉 Tier 3: the ecosystem tier. Hugely valuable inside one world, invisible outside it: Oracle OCI AI Foundations (completely free, and the best price-to-value on this list if your company runs Oracle), VMware VCP-VCF (~$250) for the private-cloud world, and CertNexus CAIP ($367.50, expects 1-3 years of hands-on ML experience).
⚠️ The three traps that make any cert worthless: collecting multiple entry-level certs that certify the same knowledge under different logos (the second one adds almost nothing), passing the exam without ever building anything (15 minutes into a technical interview, the certificate can't save you), and buying a cert for a stack your company doesn't use.
So which one? Brand new and unsure: AWS AI Practitioner, or Azure AI Fundamentals in a Microsoft shop. That's the answer for probably eight out of ten people. You lead teams: the Google GenAI Leader. Technical and job hunting: AWS ML Engineer or NVIDIA's NCA-GENL. Company runs Oracle: take the free one.
Still torn between two? Here's the fastest tiebreaker there is: open a set of practice questions for each and see which material clicks. Ten minutes of real questions beats ten hours of reading reviews.
🎯 Try the cert practice questions, free
Real exam-style questions with explanations, for all 11 certifications in today's ranking. Sign up free, try the two certs you're torn between, feel which one clicks, then commit. It's the tiebreaker I recommend to everyone.
📕 Certs prove it. Amplified applies it.
A certification proves what you know. Amplified is about what you do with it: the daily AI habits and workflows that turn the knowledge into results people notice. If you're new here since launch, the book comes with a free 50-prompt library, and it's the natural next step after (or honestly, instead of) any exam.
💡 A certification your company's stack doesn't use is an expensive piece of paper for your LinkedIn profile. Match the cert to your stack and your role, and it pays for itself.
📬 In case you missed our last few issues
I stopped typing
Why talking to your AI gets you 3x the context and better answers. Free Talk-to-AI Kit included.
Write better emails with AI in 5 minutes
The Context → Task → Tone formula that stops AI sounding like a robot. Free 5-Minute Email Toolkit included.
Your AI forgets you
The 10-minute setup that stops you re-explaining yourself to AI. Free AI Memory Kit included.
🤔 Got questions?
Have a question you want answered? Which cert are you leaning toward? Email [email protected] and you just might be featured in an upcoming issue!
This newsletter is your starter kit for mastering AI with confidence. We keep things simple, show real examples, and focus on quick wins you can repeat.
Stay curious, stick with it, and watch your skills grow week by week!
Until next time :)
-David
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